The February 2014 issue described the projected fate of the Sun and the inner planets, but what will happen to the rest of the solar system — the giant planets, asteroids, and comets?

The inner three planets of our solar system — Mercury, Venus, and Earth — will suffer catastrophic changes due to direct interaction with the Sun’s outer layers in its future evolution to a red giant star, but the outer planets will be affected in a more quiescent sense. The orbit of Jupiter, for example, is five times farther from the Sun than that of Earth. Although extremely massive supergiant stars can grow to radii that are larger than the distance between the Sun and Jupiter, the outer layers of lower-mass stars like the Sun will not reach this scale. Therefore, Jupiter and the other outer planets will escape any direct interaction with the Sun’s tenuous atmosphere in its giant phase.

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